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Manual/Multiplayer
See also: Servers To start a multiplayer game (to fight against human players), choose "Multiplayer" from main menù. Multiplayer menu Entering "Multiplayer" menu, you will see the integrated server browser. Press "refresh" button to update the server list. Press "spacebar" on your keyboard to stop the refresh (you cannot change options during refresh). Click on the server you wish and then "fight". The table will show you the server's name, map in use, number of players connected/allowed, game mode in use, IPv4/IPv6 and PING. "Ping" represents the lag time (latency), in ms. Think it is the time that passes from when you push a button and when the server knows you did. If this value is lower, it is better. For best performances, you should not use other bandwidth consuming applications (for example, peer to peer applications) when playing an online game. Some servers may not allow you to enter if your ping is too high (you would see "Server is for low pings only"): in that case, try another server. Hint: when you are playing online on another server, you can't change map (or other parameters, like g_gametype or fraglimit) like on your own server, but you could (if the server allows it) be able to "call a vote" about it and other players will be able to vote: if the vote passes, the command will be executed. For example, you can use \callvote map xxx to change map or \callvote kick yyy to force disconnection of an ill-mannered player. Options You can find various options in the upper section of the screen: * Servers: you can search for servers over Internet, or inside your LAN (Local Area Connection) or from your Favorites list. To add a server to your "favorites" list, first connect to a server, then press "escape" key, select "server info" and then click on "add to favorites". To remove a server from "favorites" list, just select that server and then click on "delete" button. Note: "Local" network scan finds only servers using UDP ports 27960, 27961, 27962 or 27963 (so, max 4 OA server instances for each IP). However, if you know that there is a server within your LAN that uses a different port, you can still connect to it, manually specifing its IP and port using "Specify" button or \connect command. * Game Type: you can show "all" kinds of game types (including some mod-specific gametypes), or filter for a particular game type. * Sort By: it allows you so change the order of the list. Usually it is by Ping, since having lower ping is better. * Show Full: if enabled, shows also "full" servers (for example 8/8 players slots already used). You will not be able to connect there until someone quits from that server. * Show Empy: if enabled, shows also servers with no players (for example 0/8). * Only humans: if enabled, hides "bots" from the count of players (you could notice, for example, a 2/8 change into 0/8, or a 4/8 change into 2/8 if there were two bots on that server) * Hide private: if enabled, hides "private" servers, that require a password to connect to. Buttons You can find various buttons in the lower section of the screen: * Back: return to main menù * Specify: you can specify a particular server address and port (default port is 27960), if you know them (like using \connect command form command console) * Refresh: update server list. You can stop update before it finishes by pressing spacebar. * Create: starts a game as a server. * Fight: connects to the server selected from the list. Create If you select to create a game, your machine will be a server, and other players will be able to join your game. You can find this useful when playing with your friends over LAN (playing on a server inside a Local Area Network usually permits lower pings than playing over the internet). If you are the server, your ping will be 0. You will need to select the "game mode" (a.k.a. "game type".... you will also be able to change it later with \g_gametype command) and the map (you can change it later with \map command), then click "next". Then, you can open a "slot" for each player allowed to join the game: * Human: this is you. * Open: this slot is available if someone wants to connect to your server. * Bot: a bot will be there. So you will not be completely alone, waiting for other players to connect. You can also set slots as "open" and add or remove bots later, from the game. * ....: this slot is closed and no one will be able to use it. There are some options, like "capture limit" and "time limit" (when a match will end); "pure server" (usually you should enable it, it ensures that everyone have the same pk3 files loaded, preventing many common errors); "Instantgib" (all the players will have only the railgun and a single hit will kill a player); "All rockets" (all the players will have only the rocket launcher); Physics (in the original Q3A, player physics changes slightly depending on the players' frame-rate: in OpenArena this has been fixed, but if you want you can select to follow the original behaviour); Hostname (you can choose a name for your server). When you are ready, click "fight". IPs, routers and firewalls If you want your friends to join your server, please check your IP address ("internal" if you are playing within a LAN, and "external" if you want to play over the Internet. For example, you can go here to know your external IP address.) and tell it to your friends. You may need to setup your firewall to allow incoming traffic on UDP port 27960, and/or your router to forward (search for "port forwarding" or "virtual server" options in your router configuration) that port from your external address to your internal IP. You need administrator access to your router/firewall do to this. Remember that your firewall settings could prevent other players from joining your server, or even prevent you from joining other servers. If you have problems, check its settings (a firewall could be integrated in your operating system, or could be a third-party software (for example, supplied with an antivirus program), or could be managed by a network router or by a proper server). Standard port for OpenArena is 27960 (UDP), but sometimes it may be different (for example, there could be more OpenArena servers sharing the same IP, each linked a different port). To communicate with "master server" (to get the server list), your firewall has to permit outgoing traffic on UDP port 27950. Important: some routers may not allow computers inside your local network to connect to your own external IP address. Local computers should connect to internal (local) server address. To check if your router/firewall(s) are correctly configured, you can try using this tool (for Microsoft Windows), with OpenArena and oa_ded closed. Cause of its nature, troubleshooting of UDP is not too easy, and this tool claims to be more accurate than others for UDP checking. Note: you do not need to install also the optional "Ask toolbar" that comes with that intallation package: it is not related to the test, it's simply a web browser toolbar like others.... you can uncheck its option during installation. If you want to simply test your internet connection speed, you can go to Speedtest.net (bandwidth test) and Pingtest.net (ping and packet loss test). Obviously, higher bandwidth is better (anyway, OpenArea does not need enormous bandwidth, since you can play even with a 56k modem... but if you want to act as server, you should have nice upload and download speeds to support various clients) and lower ping and packet loss is better. If your settings are OK, you can check if your server is reachable from internet starting your server and then following this link, putting your external IP or IP:PORT in the place of My_server_IP. If you can see your server infos, it should be ok. Specifing your address this way works also if your server is not "dedicated 2" (not published on master server: if your server is not "dedicated 2", only who knows your IP can see your server information or connect to it from Internet). If your router/firewall supports QoS (Quality of Service) feature, you can try to set traffic for OpenArena ports as "high priority" or "low latency" to get better performances. Dedicated server It is possible to start a server game also as "dedicated server": in this case the local machine will not use the graphical system and you will not be able to play directly from that instance of the game. It is useful if you want to set up a permanent OpenArena server. You can run a dedicated server using "standard" OpenArena executable, or using a specific one designed for this mode only. In short (very short), you can enable "dedicated server" mode simpy launching openarena +set dedicated from your OS command line, or typing \dedicated in your command console, then loading a map. Allowed values are 0'' (no dedicated server: in this case, you can/must play!), ''1 (dedicated server, not broadcasted to master server: if you want to play with your friends, manually giving your address to them -usually for LAN-) and 2'' (dedicated server, broadcasted to master server: if you want that everyone may be able find your server -usually for Internet-). Remember that you can even publish your server and restrict access using a password. When running OpenArena.exe in dedicated server mode, if you type \dedicated 0 you will return to standard functionality, and clients will be disconnected. You can also start the dedicated server launching ''oa_ded.exe instead of openarena.exe: this should use'' less system resources'' (so it is advisable, especially if you want more server instances on your machine - in that case, you can manually set different ports for each instance (launching the software with +set net_port '' option), or the program will "sense" that UDP port 27960 is already in use and new istances of ''oa_ded.exe will automatically use 27961, 27962, etc.), and works only as dedicated server (dedicated 0 is not allowed). You have only the console. Using it, you don't need to type / or \ before a command. Note: oa_ded.exe is the "dedicated server" executable file for Microsoft Windows; under GNU-Linux, it is oaded.i386; under Max OS, it is oa_ded.ub: please read here for more info. There are many options that may interest you, and you may to prepare custom configuration files with an external text editor, then load them using /exec command, to don't have to set them every time. Or you may add command line options to a shortcut, like "C:\...\oa_ded.exe" +set dedicated 2 +map oasago2 +set sv_hostname Your_server_name. You can start one (or more) dedicated server(s) on a machine, then start a standard OpenArena instance and use /connect command to connect to it also from the same machine. For more info about dedicated server mode, please read Servers page. Hint: remember that you may need to configure your router/firewall, especially if you want your server to be accessible from the Internet. External server browsers We described the integrated server browser, above. But you can also find online OpenArena servers from some web pages or from external server browser programs. They could include more informations and more functions than the integrated server browser (for example, Qtracker shows you also the name of the mod in use on the server). Please read Servers page for more info and Servers#Tools section for a list of external server browsers that support OpenArena. Commands See also: Servers. You can find a server configuration example there (you may save it to a text file in your baseoa folder and then load that configuration with \exec config_file_name). Other commands available in Command console and Manual/Console Commands pages. Some commands may be available only when acting as server, or as dedicated server, or as client. * \connect - Use from client. This command allows you to specify a particular server to connect to. For example, \connect 127.0.0.1 or \connect 127.0.0.1:27960 (use the server's IP instead of 127.0.0.1, anyway this address will work if you launch two OpenArena precesses on your machine, one as "dedicated server" and the other as a client). * \reconnect - Use from client. Reconnects to the last server. Useful if you lose connection for some reason. * \callvote - If the server allows it, players can "vote" to change some server settings, for example map or g_gametype. * \serverinfo - Give information about server. * \status - Use from server. Gives information about connected clients. * \clients - Gives information about connected clients (like client id). * \serverstatus - Use from client. Gives information about connected clients. (In OA 0.8.5 there is a bug, and it will close the program). * \net_port - Without parameters, shows your own server UDP port. To choose a different port, launch openarena.exe (or oa_ded.exe) with +set net_port option. Default port is 27960: if program finds it is already in use, it will automatically use port 27961, 27962, and so on... See also * Servers * Manual